


afterlife

by eonflute



Category: Granblue Fantasy (Video Game)
Genre: Character Study, Introspection, Light Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-19
Updated: 2019-03-19
Packaged: 2019-11-25 21:30:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18171701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eonflute/pseuds/eonflute
Summary: "Since the beginning of time man has pondered what happens when our physical body dies. Some believe we go to Heaven. Others doubt its existence entirely. Then there are those who have had near death experiences and live to tell their stories."On Sandalphon, and on living.





	afterlife

**Author's Note:**

> best read to [afterlife](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qe0uOlLOIPU) by rossano galante, which was my insp for this!
> 
> (summary from the alfred music website's description of the piece)

He lives two thousand years in solitude, in suffering, in silence.

One could hardly call such a state of existence living. There is only the rise and fall of his chest and the burning, biting fire inside, anger with nowhere to go but back inside him. There is only the cut of his nails into the heels of his palms and the ache in his wings as he watches and waits for something. Anything.

When that something comes, those two thousand years spill out of him in a raging passion, refueled for the first time in so many centuries. Oh, he feels _alive_. If the world cares not for him, then he will carve his own shape into it, and it will be in whatever ragged, broken form he desires.

_Foolish._

Preposterous—to think that, no matter how untamed that fire grows, it could ever survive in the face of light incarnate. It is not just a sensation dwelling in his stomach; it is what he has become, all he knew in the years that bled into each other, and he feels his very essence withering. It is like his core is disintegrating at the edges, being picked apart into nothing. He meets his maker’s eyes, his composure fraying like the rest of his mind.

Lucifer can’t possibly see into his heart—of course he can’t. If he could, then it never would have come to this.

And yet for the coldest, briefest moment, it feels as if he can. The quiet blue light of his eyes is alight with emotions Sandalphon had dreamed of seeing, infinite sadness and infinite pain, except in those dreams he hadn’t been on the cusp of shattering.

 

✩

 

He crafts a garden of his own in this idyllic, white-tinged dream. It seems a bit too quiet, just slightly off-kilter, but the discomfort is easily worn down with his attention fixed on the trees in the garden.

It is not perfect. There is the lingering sensation of wrongness, the knowledge that he should be feeling something much sharper than this dull, barely-there ache. Sandalphon cannot quite touch upon it.

Perhaps it’s for the best.

 

The illusion fractures. It splinters and falls apart and Sandalphon stumbles.

 

And he finds emptiness unlike anything he’s known before.

Not the silent halls of Canaan, which are filled only by his weak, echoing footsteps and the crumble of pillars. This emptiness is a unique kind. It swallows him whole.

Sandalphon knows anger well. He knows vitriol and bitterness and _hate_.

Not pain. Not cold, all-consuming emptiness. He thought he’d known it well, as purposeless and worthless as he is. He had been so laughably wrong.

_Are you going to deny yourself down to your final breath?_

He wants to scream, but his words will never reach Lucifer. It is two thousand years too late to try—and now even that faint whisper in his mind, the slightest chance that he might have once been able to hear, has been snuffed out.

_You’re our shining example…our guiding light…_

He, too, has denied himself up until Lucifer’s end. His anger is real, as it has always been, but in this moment, stripped down to the emptiest shell of himself, he finally, finally sees what he’s forgotten in his own self-absorbed tantrums.

 

✩

 

The garden is back.

It feels surreal—it glows as serenely as the one he pieced together in his hazy slumber in Canaan, but there is a sharpness to it. An edge of reality.

 

All this time in the sky realm has changed him. Free as he is to learn of it himself, no longer relying solely on Lucifer’s soft-spoken recollections, he has come to realize a number of things. The skydwellers are as complex as Lucifer had recounted, naturally, but Sandalphon had not accounted for how wildly unreasonable this made them.

He is only just starting to learn of his own heart, but perhaps this strange fondness is a form of love.

And there is something else. He has yet to see the sky in all its breadth and depth, but everywhere he looks there are little fragments of familiarity. Lucifer has left his mark on this young, growing world, far beyond a lone coffee tree standing on an island. His touch was featherlight and loving; Sandalphon sees it in the life that blooms in every corner in the skydom, nurtured and cherished in all its forms by a man who always saw the light in things no matter how small or weak or insignificant they seemed.

 

That is the man whose eyes he meets now. Those eyes are the same soft blue he has always known, with the same endlessness behind them as the sky he has warred against and protected and hated and loved.

This is his Lucifer.

Sandalphon cannot possibly find enough time to convey his own plea for forgiveness, no matter how much he says. His heart aches with emotions that refuse to coalesce into words. But Lucifer seems to know this well enough—they have suffered enough, both of them, and so their fingers interlace.

_Even should the world deny you forgiveness, even should the people throughout time look upon you with hatred, you are and always shall be my solace._

_And you will always be my guiding light._

He does not want to leave Lucifer, but neither does he want to abandon the life that he has only just started living and the companions he has just begun to understand. He wants to be with Lucifer, and he wants to experience the sky that Lucifer loved— _loves_ —so dearly.

It is not time for him to pass on from the sky realm just yet.

So he leaves, his heart both heavier and lighter than it’s been in two thousand years. He leaves, knowing finally that he is forgiven, and that he no longer lives in penance. He leaves alone, but his guiding light will always be watching over him, and he will not be alone for long.

The crew is here for him, and they call out, arms outstretched—

And they bring him home.

**Author's Note:**

> some backstory! afterlife is a really personal piece to me. i performed it in my final band concert last year and our director dedicated it (and the whole concert) to us seniors. if you want more detail i talk about it a bit in [this thread](https://twitter.com/ironicblu/status/1108150937003151360).
> 
> anyways this idea's been sitting in my head since...october or november? a very long time. i really liked the entire ending of 000 and i wanted to get smth out before the event ends...i felt like all the narrative threads were tied up nicely and there was an excellent emotional resolution. i'll talk abt that more some other time.
> 
> okay that was a lot thanks so much for reading!!! i'm not the best at responding to comments but i read all of them and i appreciate them so much.
> 
>  
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/ironicblu)


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